


The Same But Different

by Nonbeing



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst later in the story, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Canon-Typical Violence, Comedy, Emotional, F/M, Gay Keith (Voltron), Human Experimentation, M/M, Plot, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23500300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonbeing/pseuds/Nonbeing
Summary: In an alternate Universe, the Military is holding all power, a revolution is in the air and an evil third force is shifting in the shadows.Keith is a soldier in the Military, and Lance is a rebel. They first met when Lance tried to infiltrate the military quarter. From that moment their destinies get tied together.In a time of confusion, love and friendship are about to bloom.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

“Hi! The name is Lance!”

“Drop your weapons and…”

The last part of the sentence was lost in a grand bellow: “FREEZE!” which indeed made the man it was addressed to stand still and even hold his breath.

“Drop your weapons and slowly put your hands behind your head.” A calm, but alert voice repeated, after the young man, who had called himself Lance, seemed to do what every wall of the narrow tunnel was now echoing back at him: “Freeeze! Freeze! Eeeze! Eeze!”

“But while I’m freezing with ease, I am not supposed to be moving.”

“Ha! At last, someone understands my joke! See, Keith, not everyone is as stiff as you are!” The stocky one of the two capturers laughed and poked with an elbow the serious, messy-haired lad, who now, in the dark, slightly resembled a mophead.

The mophead now decided to take after its inanimate relative even more and didn’t answer. The last sounds of “FREEZE” had already soaked into the stone walls, so silence befell. Such an unfriendly silence that made Lance shift from one foot to another. He now wished he had had a weapon to put down. So instead, he just put his hands behind his head and hoped that would make him feel better. It didn’t.

“Turn around.”

After a rough and rather painful performance with handcuffs given by Keith, Lance was strolling the stone corridors.

It was damp and chilly. A thrill came down his spine, so Lance suppressed it with a concurrent muscle stretch. To be more on the safe side that his armed companions hadn’t notice, how exceedingly nervous he was, Lance casually asked:

“Where are we going?”

“Ou! To have a nice, quiet saunter near a lake just by the border of the city and after that, we will dangle our feet into the water and make the water splash. Doesn’t that sound as a nice plan, Keith?” the stocky man looked at his comrade, however, this time he was not expecting any grin from the black-haired soldier. Even he himself wasn’t laughing anymore. “To feed a duckling. Have you ever…” he started, but in the middle decided it wasn’t a good idea to continue the sentence, so concluded with: “Oh, never mind! Just ignore me. We are taking you to prison you, dumbass.”

“But dungeons are the other way round.” While saying this, Lance noticed that the muscles of the black-haired soldier leading him stiffened, and immediately he understood that voicing this was a mistake. So he started humming a little melody his mother usually sings while cooking. It didn’t matter now that it was about cabbages rapidly jumping in a pot to greet carrots. Just a distraction.

“Why were you in the basements, rebel?” Keith asked, raising his eyebrow, to prevent the tall lad from singing any more, for Lance after humming had begun to exercise his vocal powers. Keith had endured a bit of the caterwauling, but now that even bossy policemen-tomatoes hadn’t been able to prevent the cabbages from singing their operatic aria to rejoice cauliflower girls, he feared that the song truly had no end.

“I’m no rebel!” Lance squeaked, forgetting to switch his voice back from a cauliflower girl. He then coughed and continued in a normal timbre: ”I am an ordinary citizen. This morning I was walking my dog when the earth under my feet collapsed, and the next moment I knew, I was already here in these cold unfamiliar tunnels. If I had known that in the closure of my walk I will have ended up down here, I would have taken a sweater from home. My mother makes such warm and cosy jumpers! Why aren’t you guys wearing anything warmer?”

“Yeah, like we’d believe you, terrorist! We wouldn’t even have to be here if you hadn’t made a wreck out of a part of our basement ceiling.”

“Then just don’t build tunnels under pavements! You wouldn’t have any problem of them collapsing under pedestrians if there were none in the first place!” After a short while, Lance added, “By the way, what do you keep in these dungeons if not prisoners?”

“None of your concern.”

“I’m just interested in what kind of creature I would have fallen if I hadn’t been as lucky as I am.” He said with an overly terrified expression.

“I would hardly call you lucky. Just lose some weight and then you won’t have to fear the earth shuttering with your every step!”

“Are you calling me fat, mophead?”

“Shut up you, lovebirds! We have arrived.” The stocky lad, of whose name Lance still was not aware of, announced as he opened a heavy metal door. “Now you, idiot, will be somebody else’s nerve-wracking, gravity enhancing problem.” He said and all three men stopped until in front of their eyes appeared something different than just a smudge of white light.

What slowly materialised in front was an inner yard of a military building, grey and dull looking as everything else in this town. Lance tried to catch every glimpse of the surroundings. Although there wasn’t much to be seen. In fact, nothing worthy at all. A not too long time ago built three stock houses with flat roofs and colour already peeling off the walls. On one of the buildings was an unappealing billboard which depicted a man with a moustache who held in his one hand a toilet cleaner and looked immensely proud of his spotless toilet bowl.

Of course, the yard was filled with more men in the same uniforms as his two capturers.

However, Lance’s eye did settle upon one thing. Or rather, this one thing fell right into Lance’s eye. It was a fly. At this moment energetic rubbing with both hands went on for a considerable length of time. Both capturers could only roll their own eyes with a hope that nothing would be interested in landing into them.

When the tall boy finally had smeared the unlucky fly against a wall, he found that another soldier of immense size had joined the company and was leading an intelligent conversation with the stocky lad from before. The new member tried to explain that where his family had come from had lived flies that ate brains of anyone who was not smart enough to listen to those in a higher position.

The flies crawled into the head through eye sockets and made nice and cosy nests in the skull. In the brain, they laid eggs. In the ears, which they used as backyards for there the sunlight reaches in more frequently, they planted some plants in the form of such weird ideas as freedom, women’s rights and pizza with chicken and pineapple.

His conversation partner, however, didn’t seem to be convinced by the argument of fly yoga in nostrils that made the person die of suffocation, for the flies exercised so earnestly that used up all oxygen. He argued that no one had ever found a dead body with fly inflicted brains. Rather, the ill-lucky people with flies in their heads just one day got an even more bizarre idea to unexpectedly take a prolonged vacation and simply vanish without saying a word.

Still, for one thing they were certain. It was all in the past. Now everyone was getting a proper education and never felt the urge to go anywhere and think of anything erratic.

Expect for the malcontents. Those poor creatures had just caught a disease, which they transmitted from one generation to another. Therefore, the soldiers had to capture all members of families involved in the rebellion. Even children. However, alive. At least in the best case. Exceptions allowed.

Lance had gotten the fly out of his eye and now once again had engaged in watching the surroundings till noticed that the dark-haired soldier was carefully observing him. Immediately after that, something got stuck in Lance’s wrong airways and he started coughing. Keith looked away.

A military car drove up. Lance didn’t seem to be too tense about his further destiny. Even a bit too little impassioned that Keith had already gotten suspicious. But wasn’t he always too vigilant?

“Where do you think you’re going?” a military man from the car stopped Keith when he was going to step into the car after Lance.

“Taking my hostage to prison.”

“There is no need for you to do that. We will take him off your hands now.”

Keith didn’t seem to be moving, just staring at the older officer in a way, which seemed from outside, outright rude. The atmosphere was becoming suspense.

“Keith!” The stocky guy from before put his arm around Keith’s shoulders, “Take a break. Just enjoy that this idiot is off your hands now.” The doors closed, and the car started moving.

“He was no idiot. He just wanted us to underestimate him.”

“Ou!” now the guy looked confused, “Do you think he was with the rebellion?”

“There’s no doubt about it.”

“Did you search him over properly?” the newcomer asked.

Both soldiers, who had forgotten to search over the captive at all, immediately exchanged quick looks.

While the last words were still lingering in the air, the car slowly changed its course towards a wall and decided to greet it with a big hug. That made the wall so thrilled that it dropped some extra paint to reveal more of its sexy edges. However, the car didn’t seem to be enjoying the intimacy properly and made its face in a bulldog-like grimace.

The stocky lad’s jaw dropped open. But he didn’t have an opportunity to wonder about the unexpected car crash any longer, for he immediately got distracted. A little helicopter appeared, flying over the roof of the nearest building. He got dumbfounded even more, when a dark figure, coming from his side, dashed forward and sprinted towards the car.

Rebels in the military base! Most soldiers were simply stupefied. One of them froze in a midstep, thereby saving lives of a newlywed bug couple, who happened to be right down there, where his foot would have landed. This bug couple experienced such of a shock that their genes mutated, and they became first ancestors of a new humanoid race. Several millenniums later, however, scientists concluded that nothing less than a nuclear bomb explosion could have caused this type of mutation.

Some men were already searching for their weapons.

This was the exact moment when a tall and utterly handsome (at least in his own view) lad emerged from the car. He kicked the back doors open with a big clang and assumed a posture with his chin held high and a gun pointed up. He had perfected the position in front of a mirror for days.

Rope ladders rolled out of the helicopter, almost falling on Lance’s head. But that only helped him to catch them in a more elegant manner, for he didn’t have a necessity to reach for them too far away now.

A bullet shot right next to his head. Along with it, Lance’s awareness returned to his surroundings. His eyes met with another gaze, dark, deep and captivating. Those eyes seemed to engulf every smallest detail of its surroundings. Humans, bullets, light, beauty, pain. Something dark ascended between them.

“Pidge!” Lance begun panicking as the man opposite of him raised a shotgun. Keith stood like a statue in the midst of the sudden chaos, still and focusing. “The shield, please! Hurry!”

A finger on a trigger.

Lance felt a magnetic current flow down the ladders. Soon the shield will wrap him in a safe bubble.

A trigger released.

 _No! The shield will not form in time._ Lance felt that he would die here.

The bullet flew a few inches past his chest. This gave an even more glamorous effect on his departure. The vexed expression on Keith’s face made Lance braver and more boastful now that the shield was finally up.

“So long!” He raised his hand to forehead in a salutation, “Lance was here! One day you shall tell legends about…”

“Lance, beware!” The voice from the helicopter came a bit too late. Nothing could have saved the young boy from colliding with the colourful billboard. He landed with his face pressed on the toilet bowl and his hand stuck between the moustache man’s legs.

Naturally, he had let go of his hold of the rope ladders. No one had ever looked as confused and bewildered with a situation he had been in as Lance was at that moment. He turned one way, then the other. He looked at the sun. It appeared the same as always, hurling little ultraviolet rays in his direction and joyfully causing cancer. Lance slid his gaze idly down on the little people running around in a chaotic pattern four floors below him. He glanced on the satisfied moustache man’s sly smile. And almost jumped out of his skin from the sudden wave of panic that hit him like he had hit the billboard a moment ago.

Lance tossed himself around and rushed after the rapidly escaping ladder. He wondered whether that idiot who had put this suspicious billboard on his escape route had been a military genius. Until now the plan had gone smoothly. However, this advertisement had indeed been a pain in the ass.

Pidge had slowed down the tempo and was waiting for him on the other side of the roof. He could already see in his mind her later laughing about his so graceful escape.

Lance heard a noise behind his back. Of course, it had only been a matter of time until someone from the military got to the roof. He didn’t have time to look back, but his sixth sense was telling him it was the black-eyed brat from before. That guy was persistent.

Just cold, hard grey concrete under his feet. Nothing else matters now. _Come on, Lance! Run! Simply run!_ He internally screamed at himself. This feeling of failure tried to seize him again. _Darn it! Not now!_

Finally, Lance grabbed the ladder and clutched to the ropes, puffing and panting. He turned back to give a broad smile to his persecutor. “Ha! Neatly done, isn’t it? And you thought you can catch me!” He laughed while flying over a gap between roofs. With a quick look, Lance measured the distance between houses to be too big for a person to jump over. However, Keith didn’t stop and crossed it effortlessly with no change in his expression. _Holy fuck! He ain’t human!_

“Higher, Pidge!” Lance climbed up the ladders.

“This crappy piece of garbage can’t make any higher! Use your head, Lance!”

Lance tried very hard. His eyes squinted, and eyeballs shot in every direction. They had come to a place where a windowless wall limited any view on the left. Whereas on right was a rather magnificent vista of the city, rooftops reflecting all shades of red from the setting sun. His mind found nothing useful to set on, so, naturally, his attention shifted to himself. The only thing he found on him that he could hurl at the pursuer was his scrappy boots. Still, a moment passed while Lance checked other alternatives, and finding none, finally moved.

Two seconds later a heavy old army boot floated through the air, delighting in the wonderful feeling of long-deserved freedom from hard labour to generations of smelly feet. Now it had its last assignment to hit Keith’s face. However, with no one directly controlling it, the boot decided to abuse the newfound liberty and deviated off the course Lance had intended for him and hit a pile of wooden boards, making the pile to collapse.

Some boards fell across the next gap between houses. Keith quickly exploited the opportunity and used one of the newly made bridges. The plank was narrow, and he had to watch his feet to keep balance and not to fall off. Therefore, the next time he raised his head was only when he was already safe on the next building.

A boot was closing in on his face. This time the aim was precise. Keith was quicker and ducked, so the footwear only slightly touched the top of his head. However, it was enough to make him stagger slightly, just enough to lose the previous tempo. Resuming the lost velocity in a short time was impossible.

There wasn’t any need for that anymore either. The roof abruptly ended. In front of him, downhill outstretched the city. Keith watched as the helicopter and the boy on ladders continued their journey to the horizon. They fitted in the view perfectly. A disturbance in an otherwise perfectly calm city that seemed to resonate with every roof and gutter. Tired brown eyes that emitted a certain gleam of conviction. A dedication that assured change.

A feeling rose in Keith. A sensation that he will indeed hear from the boy again.


	2. Chapter 2

Around midday, a light rain began to fall. It washed over the square, where the extraordinary escape had taken place only this morning. It cleansed the rooftops from the black layers of heavy dust that the wind had carried from the nearby factories. However, the water made the blackness only soak deeper into every slot between the tiles. No power would be able to dispose of it anymore. Lately, it had even been infiltrating into the hearts of so many, making them insensitive and emotionless, getting stuck between the gears of warm feelings and stopping all mechanisms of love.

Chatter and light poured out of the several windows of the dining hall on the first floor in a military building, whereas on all other surroundings long shadows stretched, as night was rapidly approaching.

A door opened with a screech that reverberated through the quiet yard and three young men in uniforms emerged into the cold air. They stayed under the door overhang and lit their cigarettes. Night cast out the last of the day and the only evidence of human presence in the yard were three red dancing fireflies by the door to the canteen. Soon even they disappeared.

Around that time, a foot that had been tapping on the moist ground stopped and a figure detached from the shadows on the roof of the opposite building. Oblivious of the three men several floors below, Keith headed into the rain.

Meanwhile among the scatters of a certain billboard, a wooden medallion had settled at the bottom of a puddle, gulping muddy water and thinking about warmth it may never be able to feel again, for it seemed to be destined to spend the rest of its days rotting, decaying till it crumbles away.

In addition to the already gruesome situation, a muddy black boot stepped on it and pressed it even deeper into the filth. Shortly after, fingers reached into the water and started to rummage the dirt. They pulled the miserable medallion out.

As rain fell on the wood, together with water mud streamed away. On the pendant, an engraving of a flower appeared. The little carvings were still filled with dirt so no details could be discerned. The slim, pale fingers tried to open the medallion. However, something in the hinge was stuck. The wet fingerless gloves didn’t make things easier, for with the very first try the pendant slipped out of the demanding hands.

Having caught the medallion in the air, Keith, not giving it any second look, slid it in his pocket and walked away from the rooftop.

Later the dark-haired man was intensely marching the long corridors. He seemed not to notice anything in the surroundings, except for the shiny tiles on the floor, till a man of average height stepped in his way. Only then Keith slowly raised his eyes, head still tilted down, and gloomed through his forehead.

“Griffin,” he stated instead of a greeting.

“Kogane,” the man took the salutation back, his left lip corner slightly twitching upward. “You weren’t in your position today.”

“Things happened.” Keith tried to pass the guy, but his way got blocked by two other soldiers, whose names Keith hadn’t been bothered to learn. “I’ll be there tomorrow,” he added.

“You better be,” Griffin stepped sideways to let Keith pass. “Don’t take your being here as granted. You’re here only because Shiro has spoken for you. No doubt he now regrets taking such ill-bred brat under his wing. Your parents should be ashamed.”

A fist flew into Griffin's face. The young man lost his balance and fell backwards on the ground. Keith jumped forward, but this time James Griffin was prepared and, while grabbing Keith’s arm, rolled on top of the attacker. He had punched the raven-haired boys face several times when Keith managed to grab Griffin’s shirt to pull the boy closer and roll to the top again. Unfortunately for Keith, they both crashed in the wall of the narrow corridor, which let James kick Keith in the stomach with his knee and rush to his feet.

Surprisingly, Griffin didn’t seem to be willing to continue the fight, so now the struggling Keith was being held by James’ friends, while Griffin himself held his hand in front of his bloody nose to prevent blood from dripping on the white tiles. Both men glared at each other.

“What’s the matter with you?” Griffin spat. “Freak.”

James walked away. The two of his friends pushed Keith one last time to the floor and walked after their friend.

Keith touched his face. Just a little blood from the corner of his lip. He was not seriously injured. In fact, far from that. _He even hits like a girl._ This revelation annoyed Keith even more.

After a closer examination of his face in the mirror of the dorm bathroom, Keith noticed his lower lip was already beginning to swell. He put a patch on his bruised lip, leaned forward on the sink and with a sight stared in the eyes of his reflection in the mirror. _No way to conceal the bruises now._

When he was about to turn away, the eyes of the reflection turned yellow. Keith let out a gasp and blinked. He looked in his eyes again; they were right as they normally use to be: a dark shade of indecision between grey and blue. He blinked. Then he blinked one more time. Then once more. He slowly closed and reopened his left eye. Keith let out a long sight. He was certain he had indeed blinked, it was just the mirror, who hadn’t blinked back.

Keith found himself too perplexed to catch even a single rational thought. So all he did was continue blinking and grimacing till the reflection begun to respond. However, it wasn’t a response he awaited. It blinked and when the eyes reopened they were a dirty tone of yellow, without iris and pupils. The mirror Keith smirked. But before the real Keith’s jaw could drop, his vision blurred in a carousel of the surroundings and when his eyes regained focus, he discovered he was in a dark space.

Keith grabbed for his knife and quickly spun around. Upon the initial discovery that he was completely alone, he began observing the surroundings more carefully. He turned around slower for a couple of times, still searching for approaching danger, but not finding any. The space around him was empty. As far as he could see, nothing was there for an eye to settle on. _Am I blind?_ Terror overwhelmed him.

Annoyed, Keith took a quick step forward, only to find that his foot hit something. The object rolled a while to the front, clacking and seemingly uphill. It didn’t roll back, but stayed on the same level as his eyes, giving out a lonely blue light. Keith tried to reach for it, but the thing turned out to be just another distant star. Only now, he noticed two other stars over the horizon. Green, yellow and blue lights shone ahead of him, over the disproportionate, gigantic head of his own dark shadow. It reminded a crown that glowed scarlet from the red light emanating from a source behind his back. There was something behind him that hadn’t been there just a moment ago.

All this awoke emotions he’d never felt before. A longing, like a warm breeze, washed over his back, sending up shivers. It was a yearning for something so beyond his experience, he wondered, whether it would ever be possible to fulfil the sudden itch. His heart froze, even though that something behind his back seemed to radiate warmth.

“Voltron!” a clear woman’s voice said from his left. The word was so certain and unmistakable that it immediately drew him out of the illusion.

Keith was still in the dorm bathroom, now hectically spinning around with a knife in hands, searching for the source of the voice. The action was definitely not helping with the tangle his thoughts were in, but it fooled his brain into thinking it was functional and therefore made Keith feel better.

Somewhere in the middle of this bizarre performance, a random thought was flying by. It was a rash thought, but it found and stuck Keith, while he was kneeling on the floor and checking under the doors of toilet cubicles, therefore due to adrenalin and the chaotic state of his mind, Keith made a rather imprudent decision.

Consequently, Keith was galloping the corridors, with a knife still clenched in hands, shirt stained with blood (his own, but mostly Griffin’s) and a wild expression in eyes. He was convinced the woman on that certain moment had peeked inside the bathroom, said a random word: “Voltron,” and hastened away the corridors once again. He was determined to find her.

This hadn’t been the first time he’d had a vision like hallucination. However, this was hitherto the foremost lifelike and emotionally heightened one of his illusions. Keith hoped the woman had answers to the abundance of questions he harboured. He was rushing past a side passage when something moved in the corner of his vision. Keith tried to stop quickly, but slipped and the turning took a bit longer. When he looked in the passage again, it was empty.

After changing clothes in his room, Keith rushed to Shiro’s apartment. If anyone could provide an explanation, it had to be Shiro. Keith hadn’t told anyone about his hallucinations before, but now he felt too overwhelmed to keep everything to only himself.

Shiro wasn’t in his rooms, but Keith was ready to wait for him as long as it would be necessary. He had done it before. Waited till the morning birds, when Shiro finally came back from his long working hours.

Shiro’s apartment was simple. Every room had a standard layout of furniture. Shiro hadn’t made any effort to personalize any of his rooms. If one day he didn’t come back to them, the rooms wouldn’t carry the slightest memory of him ever existing. _Was that precisely the reason for it or was it just Shiro’s nature to live without pageantries?_ Recently, however, a photo had found a place on a night table beside the bed. But that again was Adam’s doing.

Keith made himself a cup of coffee from the new coffee machine, which was another of Shiro boyfriend’s updates to make the place comfier. Still, in spite of simplicity, Keith had always found Shiro’s place comfortable and calming. Adam was intruding. He took Shiro away from him.

Keith sat down on the couch in front of the window and started waiting. After he had finished his second coffee and stared for a while at the opposite building (which had not taken him long but drained every bit of his patience), he concluded that the house had a serious need for curtains if anyone ever wanted to keep their private life to themselves.

The useless information he had found out on that brief moment was of incredible abundance. Some people are even worse at dancing than he is. Hunk has a silver-haired girlfriend. Griffin is fond of staring melancholically out of a window in solitude. The last revelation made Keith close the curtains rapidly.

He poured himself a glass of orange juice and returned to the coach. He yawned, then sighed. He scanned the room but didn’t find anything exciting. Consequently, Keith started to feel slumberous. He yawned again and then jumped out of his skin, almost catching a heart attack, from the sudden fright caused by a bang that made the windows rattle.

The glass rolled away on the floor, but first spilling the orange juice all over Keith’s pants. With a silent curse, Keith started to peel himself out of his trousers. They were black so it won’t stain, but for the next hours, he would need to run around Shiro’s apartment pantless. _This time Shiro is highly welcome to be late for an hour or so_ , Keith grumbled.

In the next moment, he was fighting the string in the bathroom on which he was trying to hang his newly washed pants. However, someone had had the “excellent” idea to draw the string a way too high up, so the only way to get anything on it was with throwing. But Keith’s pants weren’t in a mood to land gracefully on the string, thus they hit the opposite wall and fell in the bathtub. During the flight the medallion that was in one of the pockets, slipped out and rolled clacking under the bathtub.

Having landed his trousers with the second throw on the string, Keith crouched on the floor and gleaned under the bathtub. There was a wooden chest with a strange engraving of a widened “V”. It seemed welcoming and Keith reached for it. On the way to the box, his fingers found the medallion that had hit the box and from the bang popped open. Keith drew out his hand with the pendant clutched in his fingers.

A family photo was staring at him. On the far left was a young couple. The woman was smiling sweetly to the camera and holding her hands on her son’s shoulders. Her husband was looking at his youngest child: a girl of age four who seemed interested in something farther to the left. She was ready to dash to that thing outside of the camera’s reach at any moment and her father was prepared to not let her to.

On the right a young woman with glasses was flirtatiously inclining on a man’s shoulder. More likely a fiancé for he didn’t share the tanned skin tone with others. He was peaking sideways at her with a teasing smile.

On the floor today’s rebel was sitting together with his sister. They were undoubtedly siblings. On the moment when the picture was taken the laughing girl had poked Lance in his ribs and now he had bolted upright with mouth open in shock that his perfect posture for the photo will be ruined. Keith snorted.

On two chairs an elderly couple were seated. They simply smiled. It seemed like the world was spinning around them rapidly, but they were satisfied with just being alive. They seemed to be saying: _Let them tease each other and run, once they are our age, they will know that true happiness is simply being with those that you love the most._

In the centre of this carousel of happiness another couple was standing. They were middle aged, with greying hair and laughter wrinkles. They were looking in each other’s eyes with the greatest affection. An anchor to the home, to the family.

It is not known exactly how much of this information Keith received from the photo, but one is certain – for a second his broken heart cramped in his chest and a dull ache filled it’s every crack. He had gotten the feeling of the picture. Everyone in it seemed so natural; they knew their place in the system of the universe and acted accordingly. 

But the boy didn’t have time to ponder about what had just awoken in him for the door to Shiro’s apartment clapped.

Keith jumped for his wet pants and quickly hopped in them. _Better wet pants than no pants_ , he concluded, fishing out of a drawer a hairdryer. Now he was fully equipped to meet Shiro. When Keith was on his way to the bathroom door, the pendant found its place in his pocket again.

Keith slowly poked his head around the door. The incomer was already in the kitchen. _Of course not Shiro. It isn’t late enough._

“Hey, Adam!” Keith’s forcedly casual call interrupted whatever the man was doing. Adam swiftly turned around and hid behind his back what was on the kitchen table.

Both men, clearly uncomfortable, stared at each other till Adam said: “Hey, Keith!” and smiled cheerfully, “I brought a newspaper.” He threw the paper taken out from his bag to Keith. Unfortunately, Adam’s aim was not precise, and the newspaper flew too far away to the left of Keith. The boy reached out, but all he managed was to hit the paper with the hairdryer and to stumble outside of his cover.

He clutched the newspaper and quickly seated on the couch. Keith asked the first thing that came to his mind, wanting to lead Adam’s attention away: “Have you ever heard of Voltron?”

For a moment Keith thought muscles clenched under Adam's clothes, bet it was too volatile of a movement so it could have been a light breeze coming through some gap in the window. “Where did you heard such a bizarre name?” Adam turned, laughing. “Is it one of the latest video games? Tell me more about it!”

Keith hated when Adam spoke to him as with a child. But he always did. „Oh, I truly don’t know what it is. The thought just popped into my head this very moment. I most likely read it somewhere.” Keith lied while scanning the newspaper’s headings. Three days ago the rebels had set a bomb in a military district and 32 people had died: soldiers and civilians both.

When he raised his eyes, he found Adam carefully watching him. But before he could ask anything, from outside another bang and a sound of tumult came.


	3. Chapter 3

Despite the earlier downpour, the sky began to clear. Clouds briskly slid towards the horizon. The last one drifted past the Moon and, for the first time today, the Moon's face was revealed to the world.

That's when the tumult started and Lance was balancing on a rope stretched between two windowsills. A cat was sitting on his head and impatiently waving its tail in the boy’s face.

He had just caused an explosion in the kitchens of the military quarter. It had been an accident, but what an inconvenient one. Now the guards were after him and the cat was repeatedly trying to shove its tail in his mouth.

Earlier in the day, after returning for his medallion and not finding it, Lance took down a guard with pepper gas and an accurate kick in the crotch, put on the guard’s clothes and went for a hunt after the black-haired acquaintance of his. Keith. Lance would remember those dark eyes for a quite a while.

Someone had left a note, thrust in the hole of the billboard that Lance had punched during his escape. The note was blunt. It only said: “I have something you might want back.”

The writer just had to be that bastard with the mullet who looked like the winner of a mophead beauty pageant. Lance felt it with all his being. Or maybe… he just hoped to see that guy again. _Those eyes and the thoughtful expression were kind of sexy_ , Lance allowed himself to admit. _Only a tiny bit,_ he immediately corrected.

While wearing the guard’s uniform Lance infiltrated the kitchens. The dilemma was that he could get only into the kitchens. What was his surprise when the guard’s ID didn’t open any other doors. He’d wanted to immediately begin his search, but the man Lance had knocked out had been on kitchen duty, so he was stuck for a while with dishwashing. Lucky for him, the guard was a newbie, so everyone assumed Lance’s new identity with no doubts.

He was one of the last to stay in the kitchens. When he had wanted to leave, one co-worker pushed up the loading of vegetables on him. He had gotten a call from his pregnant wife that the baby was coming. Lance just could not decline for fear of exposure. Afterwards, however, the other loader betrayed that the faithful husband wasn’t even married but found this or some other excuse every time he wanted earlier off, which was every time a newbie came to the kitchens.

When Lance finally brought the last box with onions inside, a man who had been sitting and talking with the chef about a special menu raised his eyes. Lance saw the man’s eyebrows shoot up and a surprised recognition flickered in his eyes. He was already raising up when an onion hit him right in the forehead. The man fell backwards and stayed motionless on the floor.

For a second, the room slid into silence and everyone was just staring at the fallen man. Only Lance moved. When others finally recovered from the shock and began shouting, he was already rushing up the stairs to the living quarters with the onion box still clutched in his hands. On the top of the stairs, he turned the box over and watched as onions went bouncing down the steps, tripping some pursuers.

Lance was a quick runner and had learned all the military building layouts by heart, so escaping wasn’t difficult. Actually, it was suspiciously easy. Almost as if no one had come after him at all. Lance marvelled at his own agility and at the same time frowned about the stillness in the living quarters. It seemed almost deserted. Only some muted murmurs were heard coming from outside.

That was when Lance noticed a wire stretched on the floor, going along the wall. As if someone had wanted to use a vacuum cleaner, but every wall socket closer to the kitchens had been occupied, so the only solution had been to plug the vacuum cleaner on the other side of the building and hope the wire is sufficient in length to reach the desired cleaning spot. Looks like it was.

Lance followed the wire and came to a laundry room. There on a table was a cat in a cage playing with a paper butterfly attached to a lever which if the toy was pulled stronger would activate some kind of mechanism. Lance didn’t have any time to waste on trying to figure out the bizarre construction, he needed to get to the next building. That’s where the soldiers lived, and he’d find Keith.

Lucky for him there was a rope stretched from the window to the opposite building, meant to facilitate the transport of dirty laundry. The window was small and high set, so Lance needed to step on the table to reach it. While trying to wiggle out he accidentally kicked the cage off the table. The cat let out a large mew and dissatisfied floundered out of the cage.

Lance was already stepping on the rope when a sound of an explosion came from somewhere in the building behind his back. The cat jumped out of the window, scuttled up Lance’s leg, and trembling pressed against the boy’s spine.

Across the yard, someone started yelling. It was a boy with tampons in his nose who had been looking out of a window even before the explosion. He was now pointing at Lance and shouting something.

When Lance continued walking, the cat climbed on his head and Lance could feel the hate radiating from the little animal. It blamed Lance for all mishaps the life had given it.

When Lance jumped through the other buildings window, he expected to be surrendered by military officers, but the hallway was empty. He awaited them to come bursting out of their rooms, some even pulled at the handles, but everyone stayed inside. Every door in the hallway was locked.

Lance broke into a sprint to the other end of the corridor. The feeling was eerie. Slowly soldiers griped that they are locked into their rooms and began shouting and pounding at their doors. That was when a second explosion happened somewhere from the direction where Lance was heading. Lance ran faster than ever. Forget the medallion! Now he only hoped to get faster out of the military district.

This couldn’t possibly end well. Who would be stupid enough to attack the Military directly? _And why did it have to be when I am here?_ Lance’ damned luck was kicking in again.

Lance galloped till the end of the hallway. He stood in a crossroad: to his sides, the corridor continued. He looked out of the window. The yard was full of armed men. They all were shouting. Captains barked orders that no one was listening. Everyone seemed to know better how to act. The rocket was big enough to interfere with any clear thoughts, but Lance wasn’t thinking at all. His every brain cell was occupied with fear.

That’s when the hallways gradually got silent again. The screams from the other side of the doors at first got incoherent, then turned into low growls, when finally completely stopped. Lance stood unmoving with only the sound of his rapid heartbeat reverberating in his head.

The first muffled bang came from his right. It sounded as if something heavy had fallen to the floor. On his left, someone responded with the same hollow noise. Then behind every door was a man was falling to the floor.

Lance on jelly legs staggered some steps to the left. He tried to run but only managed not to fall down when leaning against a wall while putting one foot in front of the other to get out of the building.

In a flash, the doors in front of him shot open, almost hitting Lance in the forehead. Into the corridor marched Keith.


End file.
